Some question is spreading of sludge near schools is safe

Saturday

Mar 16, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 16, 2013 at 6:21 PM

Molly McGowan/Times-News

A study from the University of North Carolina’s School of Public Health says spreading sewage treatment byproducts on local fields may cause illnesses for people living within a mile of where it’s spread.

But Burlington officials maintain the decades-old practice is legally sanctioned and hasn’t been deemed unsafe, and the local school board won’t be taking any action against the city to stop land application of waste solids near Alamance-Burlington schools.

Amy Lowman, a research associate in epidemiology at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, co-authored a study released Tuesday, “Land Application of Treated Sewage Sludge: Community Health and Environmental Justice.” She interviewed residents in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia who live near fields where the treated sewage byproducts are spread as fertilizer.

More than half of those interviewed reported experiencing burning eyes, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea after the waste solids had been spread or sprayed, according to the study. Other symptoms reported by more than one person included skin infection and sores, sinus congestion or drainage and difficulty breathing.

“Study participants told us that the onset of the symptoms occurred while the sludge was being applied or soon after,” Lowman said in a prepared statement with the report.

The study seems to support what Mike Holland of Saxapahaw has been claiming for years, that treated sewage byproducts are unhealthy.

“My main focus has been addressing the school board,” said Holland, who heads up the Center for Environmental Research and Education in Saxapahaw.

“If you spray by an elementary school, there’s a problem. If you spray it and you don’t tell the principal, even bigger problem,” he said. “Spraying city sewage near an elementary school may be legal, but it’s not moral.”

The practice of applying treated waste byproducts to farmers’ fields is sanctioned and regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of North Carolina, as an alternative fertilizer. Annually, Burlington contracts with private company Synagro to spread 24 million gallons over about 4,000 total acres, or about 114 individual fields, across six counties.

“Manure is not even close to being regulated like this stuff is,” said Eric Davis, Burlington’s water and sewer operations manager. Anytime the city’s tanker trucks apply the treated waste byproducts to any field in the six counties Burlington currently serves, they have to maintain EPA and state-regulated buffers from property lines, wells and habitable areas.

Holland said he thinks that’s still too close for comfort when children are involved.

Since 2009, Holland has been writing letters and emails to members of the Alamance-Burlington School System with his concerns about Burlington spraying sewage treatment byproducts on fields in proximity to Sylvan, B. Everett Jordan and Pleasant Grove elementary schools.

First, Holland asked school board member Tony Rose to lead the board in petitioning the city to stop spreading on fields near the schools. Holland said Rose wanted to remain neutral on the subject and suggested Holland take his request to the ABSS administrative staff. Holland did, but his attempts were fruitless, he said.

WHILE HOLLAND took on the school board, Sue Dayton, a member of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, confronted the Burlington City Council in 2009. She said children at the three elementary schools were being exposed to viruses, bacteria, toxic metals and chemicals every time the city spread the waste solids in nearby fields.

But the heavy metal point has become moot, Davis said.

Years ago, he said, cities would dump processed water and sewage into rivers, but when the Clean Water Act of 1972 came about, it required entities to have a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit to discharge the elements into a body of water.

Since then, most facilities have opted to hook up to a municipal sanitary sewer, rather than obtain their own individual permits. As a result, the cities — including Burlington — are pretreating all that water and sewage and “the amount of metals has reduced,” Davis said.

He said the city’s two waste water treatment plants measure for metals including mercury, cadmium, nickel, lead selenium and copper. And, Davis said, “We have to test both the biosolids and the land we’re applying it to for metals.”

That means the soil and crop type planted in each application type is identified, which tells the city how many pounds of nitrogen can be applied per acre, said Fletcher. Each tanker is then calibrated to evenly distribute the waste solids with the correct amount of nitrogen individual to each field, he said.

Not only that, the city tests for harmful, regulated elements during the waste water treatment process, which ultimately creates two byproducts: the clean water that’s put back into streams and the waste byproducts.

DESPITE THE TESTINGand pathogen reductions, Holland and Lowman maintain there still could be harmful elements in the “sludge” when it’s applied to fields.

“Although the EPA promotes land application of sludge, it has not said it’s safe for people’s health or the environment,” Lowman said.

“There’s no data either way,” said Holland. “In that case, don’t do it.”

He said stopping the city from spreading near schools is a “precautionary principle,” and if a suspicious person in a trench coat were lurking around school property, the administration wouldn’t hesitate to take preventative action. Holland said the same should be done about the waste byproducts.

Davis said Holland is correct, but, “There’s literally millions of things we don’t test for because there are millions of things out there that aren’t regulated,” by the state or EPA.

Davis added that doesn’t mean those elements won’t be added to the list of “emergent contaminants” for which cities will eventually have to test their water or waste byproducts. And he said the city has already tested for flame retardant levels in its waste solids.

Holland said he is still leading a campaign to ask the ABSS to request the city stop spraying near the elementary schools even though he received a letter from Superintendent Lillie Cox in February stating ABSS will draft no such petition.

Holland said he still plans to take his campaign through November — if it takes that long — and will be attending school board meetings with concerned parents to try and change the minds of the ABSS administration.